Spratley v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 20 March 1930
• Citation: 154 Va. 854
• Parties: CHARLIE SPRATLEY v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Page 854

154 Va. 854

CHARLIE SPRATLEY v. COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Court of Virginia, Richmond.

March 20, 1930.

Absent, Hudgins, Gregory and Browning, JJ.

1. INTOXICATING LIQUORS — Transportation — Evidence Sufficient to Sustain Conviction — Case at Bar. — The instant case was a prosecution of three defendants for violation of the prohibition law. One of the defendants testified that he was about to take a bus when he saw a car with the other defendants in it and asked for a lift; that he was taken in and saw the bags containing whiskey but did not know there was whiskey in them and knew nothing of their contents until they were all arrested; that he had no interest in the whiskey and would not have ridden in the car if he had known there was whiskey in it; and that he did not know of or see a pistol in the car until the arrest. This evidence was corroborated by the other defendants.

Held: That the evidence was plainly insufficient to sustain a verdict of guilty against this defendant.

2. ACCOMPLICES AND ACCESSORIES — Aiders and Abettors — Mere Presence. — The mere presence of a person at a place where a crime is committed, even though he know that it is being committed, is not a crime, nor alone sufficient to establish his participation in the crime, nor to constitute him an aider or abettor of the crime.

3. INTOXICATING LIQUORS — Rules of Law and Evidence the Same as in Other Prosecutions for Crime. — Except in so far as modified by statute, the rules of law and evidence are the same in prosecutions for violation of statutes prohibiting the manufacture, possession, transportation, or sale of intoxicating liquors as in prosecutions for other crimes.

4. INTOXICATING LIQUORS — Transportation — Prima Facie Evidence of Transportation — Aiders and Abettors — Mere Presence of Person in Automobile. — The mere presence of a person in an automobile in which intoxicating liquor is being transported, with or without his knowledge, which is not shown to be owned by him or under his possession or control, single or joint, is not a crime; nor is it made by the statutes of Virginia prima facie evidence of his transportation of or aiding or abetting the transportation of the intoxicating liquor in the automobile; nor is it alone sufficient to sustain his conviction upon a charge of transporting intoxicating liquor.

5. INTOXICATING LIQUORS — Transportation — Aiders and Abettors — Evidence to Support Conviction. — To support a conviction on a charge of transportation or aiding and abetting there must be something more than the mere presence of the accused in the vehicle transporting the liquor. There must be direct evidence of his single or joint ownership, possession or control thereof, or of his participation in or aiding or abetting the transportation thereof; or the facts and circumstances proven surrounding his presence in the automobile with the intoxicating liquor, or other facts and circumstances proven, must be such that from them it may be reasonably and naturally inferred with a certainty beyond a reasonable doubt that he was in the single or joint ownership, possession or control of the intoxicating liquor, or that he was participating in or aiding or abetting the transportation thereof; and the resultant of the several facts and circumstances proved must not only be consistent with his guilt, but must be inconsistent with and exclude every reasonable hypothesis of his innocence.

6. INTOXICATING LIQUORS — Transportation — Ownership of the Liquor — Participation by Defendant in the Transportation — Case at Bar. — In the instant case defendant was convicted along with two others of the transportation of liquor. The Commonwealth's own testimony made it impossible to draw from the presence of this defendant in the automobile in which the whiskey was found the inference that he was in single or joint ownership, possession or control of the whiskey; for that evidence clearly pointed to the exclusive ownership, possession and control thereof being in the other defendants, and there was nothing in the Commonwealth's evidence that this defendant participated in, aided or abetted the transportation. But even if the Commonwealth's testimony standing alone could be deemed sufficient to sustain a conviction, any inference that might be drawn from that evidence that this defendant had the ownership, possession or control, singly or jointly, of the whiskey, or that he participated in the transportation, was rebutted by the uncontradicted testimony for the defense, corroborated by the testimony of the other two defendants.

Held: That the evidence did not support a conviction of this defendant.

7. INTOXICATING LIQUORS — Transportation — Impeachment of Witness — Case at Bar. — In the instant case accused, with two others, was convicted of transporting liquor. The Commonwealth contended that the testimony of accused that he did not know there was whiskey in the automobile until he was arrested was inconsistent with the testimony for the Commonwealth and so improbable as to discredit his whole testimony. Accused's testimony was corroborated by the other defendants. There was no evidence to show that accused had been drinking and the whiskey was concealed from view, and there was nothing to show that accused when he hailed the automobile and entered it in the dark had any knowledge or suspicion that the automobile had whiskey in it.

Held: That the contention of the Commonwealth that the circumstances discredited accused's testimony was not well made.

8. WITNESSES — Weight and Credibility of Testimony — Right of Jury to Reject Testimony of Witness or Accused. — While the jury is the judge of both the weight of the testimony and the credibility of witnesses, it may not arbitrarily or without any justification therefor give no weight to material evidence, which is uncontradicted and is not inconsistent with any other evidence in the case, or refuse to credit the uncontradicted testimony of a witness, even though he be the accused, whose credibility has not been impeached, and whose testimony is not either in and of itself, or when viewed in the light of all the other evidence in the case, unreasonable or improbable, and is not inconsistent with any fact or circumstance to which there is testimony or of which there is evidence. There must be something to justify the jury in not crediting and in disregarding the testimony of the accused other than the mere fact that he is the accused or one of them.

Error to a judgment of the Hustings Court of the city of Portsmouth.

The opinion states the case.

Harry A. Brinkley, for the plaintiff in error.

John R. Saunders, Attorney-General, and Leon M. Bazile and Edwin H. Gibson, Assistant Attorneys-General, for the Commonwealth.

EPES, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff in error (Charlie Spratley) was jointly indicted with Clarence Stancil and Willie Stancil for violation of the prohibition law. The first count of the indictment was the so called omnibus count. The second count charged that Clarence Stancil, Willie Stancil and Charlie Spratley did on July 6, 1928, unlawfully and feloniously transport ardent spirits in an automobile, said Clarence Stancil, Willie Stancil and Charlie Spratley having therein at the time a loaded pistol. The third count charged all three men with the unlawful possession of ardent spirits on July 6, 1928. The defendants all pleaded not guilty and were tried jointly. The jury found the following verdict: "We, the jury, find the defendants guilty as charged in the indictment and fix their punishment as follows: Clarence Stancil three years in penitentiary, Charley Spratley and Willie Stancil each two years in the penitentiary." The defendants moved the court to set aside the verdict as contrary to the law and evidence, which motion the court overruled and entered judgment on the verdict against all three defendants.

All three defendants filed their petition for a writ of error, assigning as error that the evidence is not sufficient to support a verdict of guilty against Charlie Spratley and Clarence Stancil. This court refused to grant a writ of error to Willie Stancil and Clarence Stancil, but granted a writ of error and supersedeas to Charlie Spratley.

The only witness for the Commonwealth was Leroy Saunders, the police officer who arrested the defendants. The only witnesses for the defense were the three defendants.

Leroy Saunders testified that between one and two o'clock in the morning he observed a car coming down County street in the city of Portsmouth, and becoming suspicious he ordered the occupants of the car to drive to the side of the street and stop, which they did; that upon investigation he found that the car was a Dodge touring car which was occupied by Clarence Stancil, Willie Stancil and Charlie Spratley; that Clarence Stancil occupied the front seat and was operating the car; that Willie Stancil and Charlie Spratley were on the back seat; that on the floor in front of Willie Stancil and Charlie Spratley were three five-gallon flasks of whiskey in two bags; that on the back seat with them were a gallon jug and a one-half gallon jug of whiskey, both in paper bags, and two pint bottles, both unwrapped and uncovered, one full and one half full of whiskey; that he took from the front seat beside Clarence Stancil a loaded revolver and from somewhere in the car a belt containing cartridges; that he arrested the three occupants of the car, at which time Clarence Stancil told him that the whiskey, the car and the gun were all his (Clarence Stancil's) property, but that at the trial in the police court Willie Stancil testified that the whiskey belonged to him (Willie Stancil) and that the others had nothing to do with it. Whether the jugs and bottles on the back seat were so placed as to be next to Charlie Spratley or were so placed that Willie Stancil was seated between them and Charlie Spratley does not appear from the...